Mitch Meets the World: A Walk on the Wild Side

June 7, 2010

Greetings from Brazil! My latest stops have been all about appreciating the richness and diversity of South American wildlife. They have been nothing short of amazing.

I started off in the Bolivian pampas, which is an area in Northwest Bolivia quite close to the Amazon Forest. The pampas is a flat, lush wetland that is absolutely teeming with life. I expected that we would have to search for wildlife, with the occasional sighting—I couldn’t have been more wrong. I felt like I was in a planet earth episode. On our first day, we took a boat ride down the river and saw an alligator literally every 20 or 30 feet. The alligators ranged from very small ones to others that were over 2 meters long. We saw a ton of other animals, including blue, brown, and white herons (they are beautiful birds, especially when in flight), black caimans (they are much more dangerous than the alligators—they are known to attack almost anything), vultures, kingfishers (the most graceful bird I saw, with beautiful blue-green feathers), the jabaroo stork (the biggest bird in the pampas), birds of paradise (not very graceful, but with some flashy head feathers for attracting females), capybaras (they were so cool! They are the world’s biggest rodent and don’t seem like the kind of animal that would be suited to the jungle climate at all. They sort of look like a giant prairie dog), turtles (always hanging out in long trains along the river logs, with each one standing on the back of the one in front of it), squirrel monkeys, cappuccino monkeys, howler monkeys, cormorants (the best fisher of the pampas birds), one pink flamingo, the condor de las pampas (another big and not-so-graceful bird), and cows! I felt like I was in a zoo.

I had an interesting encounter with some of the squirrel monkeys along the river. Our guide, Negro, decided to feed them a banana, which he held directly above my head. For the monkeys my head wasn’t an obstacle—it was a stepladder.

We spent one afternoon fishing for piranhas, which were incredibly abundant in the river. I would toss my line in and within one second would be getting bites. I managed to catch two of them, but, at 4 inches, I can’t say that they were master anglers. During our fishing trip we spotted a sloth high up in a tree. Staying true to its name, it had moved about 10 feet when we saw it in the same tree the next day. We also went searching for anacondas in the high grasses of the marsh, and managed to spot one that was about 1.7 meters long. They can reach up to 10m in length, which is an encounter that I would rather avoid. Seeing a relatively small one was really cool.

One of the best parts of the trip was getting to see the beautiful pink river dolphin up close. We found a group of about 3 or 4 and followed them down the river. It was incredible! The dolphins are about 8-10 feet long, with grey backs and pink flippers and tails. We hit a wide part of the river we jumped in to swim with them. Considering the number of alligators we had been seeing, the swim was a nerve-wracking proposition but our guide assured us that it was safe. To say we swam “with” the dolphins is a bit generous, but we definitely swam close to them—that is, until an alligator swam across the river about 50 feet in front of us, promptly ending the swimming excursion.

After quick stops in the towns of Trinidad and Samaipata, and the city of Santa Cruz, I was on the train to Brazil! Brazil has been a country that I have always dreamed about visiting, and it feels almost surreal to finally be here. My first stop in Brazil was the Pantanal, which is the Brazilian savannah located in the southwest part of the country. The Pantanal is famous for wildlife watching, and I knew that I couldn’t miss out on it.

The Pantanal was very good, although I think I was slightly jaded by my incredible experiences in Bolivia. We saw many different animal species, but compared to the Pampas, the Pantanal seemed almost sparse. In the Pampas we saw tens or hundreds of nearly every species, while in the Pantanal we would tend to see just a few of each. It didn’t feel quite as alive. My favourite part of the Pantanal tour was seeing macaws and toucans in the wild. I was struck by the incredible volume of a macaw’s voice—their calls to their mates reverberate through the entire forest. Also, their vibrant red, green, and blue feathers are much more impressive in person than in any photo I have seen. The toucan is surprisingly fast and graceful in the air and is always easy to spot with its bright orange beak.

One day we also saw a big black Tapir (anteater), which was really cool. It was about 6 feet long and had a big black tail. Another highlight was seeing the Jabaroo stork—the symbol of the Pantanal. We managed to get up quite close while it was in its nest and marveled at its size. It was about 1.5m tall with a 2m wingspan, and had white wings and a black head and neck. I also saw my first wild armadillo that day! Another new animal was the coatis, which is kind of like a cross between a raccoon and a possum. Other animals we saw included a giant river otter, bush deer, black caimans, kingfishers, hawks, the tiger herons, bare faced ipes (a black bird with an orange beak that cover trees by the hundred near dusk), cormorants, a cobra, capybaras, and monkeys. Most of the wildlife we saw seemed more or less disinterested in us, which I think is a good sign that the tours are eco-friendly. Besides the wildlife, the Pantanal itself is a beautiful region, with calm serene rivers, wide-open grasslands, and lush treed areas.

After the Pantanal, I headed to the town of Bonito (meaning beautiful in Portuguese). It was bonito! In Bonito, I visited the largest sinkhole in South America, which was 126m deep and 500m around. It is quite a sight—red rock grown in with rich green vegetation and a lake at the bottom of the hole. Moreover, the hole is a favourite nesting ground for macaws and we saw about 10 while we were there.

The main attraction in Bonito is snorkeling in the clear rivers that surround the town. I did a day trip to snorkel in the Rio Prata and it was an amazing experience. There are a number of conservation measures in place to protect the river. We were forbidden from kicking our feet, diving down, or touching any of the rocks or vegetation in the river. We also had to walk 40 minutes through the forest just to reach the start of the river. The protection efforts are well deserved: the river is a wonder. Its water is crystal clear—the visibility underwater is 120 feet—and is full of fish. The snorkeling was great. We snorkeled for 2.5 km down the river and saw all types of fish and underwater plant life. Some of the fish were as big as 2.5 feet and there were tons of smaller fish. We essentially drifted down the river with the current and soaked in the amazing scenery below us. We also had an underwater camera, which let us capture the experience!